about which were good and which were bad; quite
possibly, in turn, their sons may agree with us. I do not see that it
matters. We cannot treat anything as final--except that the world goes
round. We appear out of the darkness at one edge of it; we are carried
across and pitched off into the darkness at the other edge of it. We are
certain about nothing else."

"Except that some of us have to pay for our ride, and others don't," put
in Thorpe. The tone in which he spoke made his meaning so clear that his
Grace sat up.

"Ah, you think we do not pay?" he queried, his countenance brightening
with the animation of debate. "My dear sir, we pay more than anyone
else. Our fares are graduated, just as our death-duties are. No doubt
there are some idle and stupid, thick-skinned rich fellows, who escape
the ticket-collector. But for each of them there are a thousand idle
poor fellows who do the same. You, for example, are a man of large
wealth. I, for my sins, carry upon my back the burden of a prodigious
fortune. Could we not go out now, and walk down the road to your nearest
village, and find in the pub, there a dozen day-labourers happier than
we are? Why--it is Saturday night. Then I will not say a dozen, but
as many as the tap will hold. It is not the beer alone that makes them
happy. Do not think that. It is the ability to rest untroubled,
the sense that till Monday they have no more responsibility than a
tree-toad. Does the coming of Sunday make that difference to you or to
me? When night comes, does it mean to us that we are to sleep off into
oblivion all we have done that day, and begin life afresh next morning?
No-o! We are the tired people; the load is never lifted from our backs.
Ah, do we not pay indeed!"

"Oh-ho!" ejaculated Thorpe. He had been listening with growing
astonishment to the other's confession. He was still surprised as he
spoke, but a note of satisfaction mounted into his voice as he went on.
"You are unhappy, too! You are a young man, in excellent health; you
have the wife you want; you understand good tobacco; you have a son.
That is a great deal--but my God! think what else you've got. You're the
Duke of Glastonbury--one of the oldest titles in England. You're one of
the richest men in the country--the richest in the old peerage, at any
rate, I'm told. And YOU'RE not happy!"

The other smiled. "Ah, the terms and forms survive," he said, with a
kind of pedagogic affability, "after the substance ha